Monthly Archives: February 2008

So far in the campaign, Barack Obama has generally refrained from going after the most critical weakness of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy: the fact that the Clinton whom Democrats really like is Bill, while Hillary, who now presents herself as the voice of experience, got most of that experience as First Lady, first of Arkansas, then of the United States. Until now, no one has ever suggested that being married to »

One of the highlights of our Book of the Year award ceremony in New York was the speech by Henry Kissinger, founder of the “realist” school of foreign policy. It was instructive to see how far his thinking diverges from that of most of those who today call themselves “realists.” Here is a brief excerpt from his talk: Terrorism, what we call terrorism, refers to a method. What terrorism represents »

One of the sources of Barack Obama’s strength against Ms. Hillary is his greater likability. She has so far been unable to criticize him effectively in part because doing so tends to highlight one of his strengths along with one of her weaknesses. Even so, we haven’t yet seen a public display of anger at Obama or her situation that reveals her inner Nurse Ratched. Her inner Ratched is one »

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal editorial on John McCain’s awkward attempt to work his way around the campaign finance edifice he helped to construct is instructive on several grounds. Consider this: Last week, we wrote about the $3 million loan his campaign took out to keep his campaign afloat in November, putting up its fund-raising lists and a life insurance policy as collateral. If the campaign had gone south, Mr. McCain »

Ms. Hillary is not “a real fine lady,” and yet I am certain that John DiIulio’s Weekly Standard article on her prospects at this point should have been titled in honor of the Roger McGuinn tune (video below, with McGuinn, Gene Clark, and Chris Hillman): “Don’t you write her off.” At NRO’s Corner, Victor Davis Hanson projects himself into the mind of the Clintons and opines: I still maintain that »

In “Repeat offender” Paul Mirengoff puts the hit piece by the New York Times on John McCain this week in the context of the Times’s Duke non-rape coverage. I think Paul’s judgment is that the Times’s McCain hit piece is even worse than the Times’s disgraceful coverage of the Duke non-rape case. I’m agnostic on which is worse, but Paul raises several relevant considerations and makes a powerful case. The »

Ms. Hillary’s stump speech includes a paean to those working the day shift, the night shift, and the late shift. She is running an ad in Ohio called “Night shift.” She has not yet spoken up for the shifty and the shiftless, but she has chalked up many of them as campaign contributors. In Bleak House Charles Dickens recognized the phenomenon of “telescopic” or distant philanthrophy practiced by those who »

Today, the New York Times held an on-line question and answer session about its sliming of John McCain. It was pretty interesting, and I hope to find time tomorrow to comment in more detail. In the meantime, Michael Ramirez sums up the esteem in which the Times is held these days. Click to enlarge: »

Earlier today, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey delivered a letter to Silvestre Reyes, the chairman–unfortunately–of the House Intelligence Committee. Their letter responded to a letter by Reyes on February 14 that disputed the urgency of reforming and modernizing FISA. The McConnell/Mukasey letter is devastating to those who, like Reyes, try to claim that no harm is being done by the Democrats’ stonewalling of FISA »

It goes without saying that Barack Obama will end the hardship and “struggle” in our daily lives. Under the Yes We Can Man, folks (other than conservative bloggers) will be able to quit their second jobs, the price of gasoline will plummet, and Ivy League grads will never again have to work for hedge funds to pay off their college loans. Nor does Obama’s magic end at our borders. Last »

The Star Tribune devoted three reporters to its story on the illegal alien whose reckless driving apparently caused the crash that killed four kids near Cottonwood, Minnesota. The story was most recently updated an hour ago. The Star Tribune reports that “[f]ederal immigration officials are assisting the State Patrol’s investigation of the crash and are looking into Morales’ background[.]” The Star Tribune gingerly adds that “Morales’ arrest will help authorities »

Gene Nichol, William & Mary’s ex-president, did serious damage to the college through, among other things, his high-handed efforts to impose his ACLU sensibilities. But at least this was a legitimate policy position. Nichol saved his worst for last — a self-pitying letter announcing his resignation to the William & Mary community, in the face of the decision by the Board of Visitors not to renew his contract. Nichol’s letter »

Mark Falcoff is resident scholar emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Cuba: The Morning After — Confronting Castro’s Legacy. He reflected on Castro’s survival in office this week in a London Times column. He also forwarded additional thoughts to us on what he calls “the romance with Castro.” He writes: I’d like to reflect a bit on the romance of Fidel Castro. It’s something I’ve never quite »

Today is the anniversary of the birth of George Washington. Of all the great men of the revolutionary era to whom we owe our freedom, Washington’s greatness was the rarest and the most needed. At this remove in time, it is also the hardest to comprehend. Take, for example, Washington’s contribution to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Washington’s mere presence lent the undertaking and its handiwork the legitimacy that resulted »

You may have heard about an accident in southwestern Minnesota in which a school bus was rammed from the side by a van, killing four school children. After considerable hemming and hawing, it has been confirmed that the woman who was driving the van, Alianiss Morales, is an illegal alien. Morales has been booked on suspicion of criminal vehicular operation. It’s a tragic story, with elements that, as so often »